Bestial Disadvantage & Skills

[onetrikpony]

I had read the "Disadvantage of the Week" thread (because I love that series) before I posted this one. I didn't really say much about skills.

Would anyone still interested please consider; Can a character with the Bestial disadvantage use the skills; Soldier and Crewman (B185, 221) if they have IQ 10?

Which social skills are prohibited by the Bestial disadvantage (Assume IQ 10)?

Acting (B174) I'm unsure
Carousing (B183) I assume Yes.
Connoisseur (Weapons) (B185)
Detect Lies (B187) I'm unsure
Fast Talk (B195) I'm unsure
Intimidation (B202) I assume Yes.
Merchant (B209) I assume No.
Musical Instrument (Percussion) (B211) I assume No.
Naturalist (B211) I assume Yes.
Sex Appeal (b219) I assume Yes.

It seems that the 'Civilized social skills' that are absolutely prohibited are the ones that allow an Influence Roll in place of a Reaction Roll, such as Diplomacy and Streetwise; excepting Intimidation.

[JulianLW]

The entry for Bestial (B124) says "Bestial is not necessarily tied to low IQ, but roleplaying a character who is both Bestial and remarkably intelligent would be a major challenge requiring a lot of thought and effort. The GM may therefore choose to restrict Bestial to characters with IQ scores under 10 (or even under 6!), or simply reserve it for NPCs."

One great example of a high IQ Bestial character is the "Antibodies" of the comic book character "Antibody" from Marvel's New Universe comic D.P.7, from the late 80s. The Antibodies were shadowy energy beings that were a bit like Duplicates that emerged from doctor Randy O'Brien. These beings were mute and naked (though featureless, like shadows) and acted like very intelligent animals with exaggerated personalities based on O'Brien's personality. O'Brien struggled to control them, and eventually gave them "pet" names based on the Marx brothers's names.

These characters were obviously Bestial - they routinely entered places without regard to privacy or property rights (they could become insubstantial and move through walls), eavesdropped, borrowed, and generally behaved like extremely intelligent animals. The could also, however, use all of O'Brien's skills, including offering medical treatment. They weren't humans and didn't care about human conventions; they were classic "Bestial" characters.

I thought that O'Brien was a really cool superhero - and the character continued to grow in terms of power throughout the short run of the comic. I suspect that the writers envisioned that O'Brien would eventually play a central leadership role in the New Universe.

In any case, I don't think that Bestial necessarily eliminates any skills at all. D.P.7 is a good example of how that disadvantage might look when applied to a very capable being.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

I had read the "Disadvantage of the Week" thread (because I love that series) before I posted this one. I didn't really say much about skills.

Would anyone still interested please consider; Can a character with the Bestial disadvantage use the skills; Soldier and Crewman (B185, 221) if they have IQ 10?

Which social skills are prohibited by the Bestial disadvantage (Assume IQ 10)?

Acting (B174) I'm unsure
Carousing (B183) I assume Yes.
Connoisseur (Weapons) (B185)
Detect Lies (B187) I'm unsure
Fast Talk (B195) I'm unsure
Intimidation (B202) I assume Yes.
Merchant (B209) I assume No.
Musical Instrument (Percussion) (B211) I assume No.
Naturalist (B211) I assume Yes.
Sex Appeal (b219) I assume Yes.

It seems that the 'Civilized social skills' that are absolutely prohibited are the ones that allow an Influence Roll in place of a Reaction Roll, such as Diplomacy and Streetwise; excepting Intimidation.

Naturalist isn't a social skill. Animal Handling is. I would say "no" to Carousing unless it was kind of comedic game.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Would anyone still interested please consider; Can a character with the Bestial disadvantage use the skills; Soldier and Crewman (B185, 221) if they have IQ 10?

Not in the conventional sense, aspects of those skills pertain to the inherently 'collection of people' nature of the skills.

You could conceivably have Bestial characters with competencies best represented by those skills, in which case I'd suggest that being Bestial means they can't use any social elements of the skill even if they have them.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Acting (B174) I'm unsure

Acting is the core skill for most forms of deceptive pretense. Even dumb wild animals exhibit it.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Carousing (B183) I assume Yes.

No way, Carousing is a pure social skill that only makes sense among people. Are you imagining it's too low-brow to count as 'civilized' or what?

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Connoisseur (Weapons) (B185)

Again not in the normal sense, Connoisseur is rather an 'Art appreciation' skill and that still applies to the weapons specialty.

If it's also used for evaluating utilitarian qualities of weapons then it might come in under the same terms as Soldier/Crewman.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Detect Lies (B187) I'm unsure

Probably. Detect Lies is decidedly an 'interacting with people' skill, but assuming you understand human language it's perfectly compatible with being entirely outside human society.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Fast Talk (B195) I'm unsure

Conceivable but it would need an explanation of why you know humans well enough to ******** them but not well enough to play at civilization if you wanted to.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Intimidation (B202) I assume Yes.

Another one for the 'dumb wild animals do it', in this case right down to insects!

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Merchant (B209) I assume No.

Merchant is rather predicated on an appreciation of the idea of property, or at least possessions, which Bestial conflicts with. Animals can grasp trading, but I'm not certain whether they'd count as having lost Bestial first.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Musical Instrument (Percussion) (B211) I assume No.

Having an aptitude for behaviors close enough to music that humans generally see it is as such is something real wild animals already have.

Bestial would make it pretty implausible to be part of a band, but playing instruments isn't out of the question if you've got the anatomy and tech-savvy.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Naturalist (B211) I assume Yes.

Really almost any scientific or knowledge skill, though it would be difficult to obtain most of them by normal means. In the case of Naturalist obviously picking up the information first-hand isn't so strange.

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Sex Appeal (b219) I assume Yes.

...Probably yeah. Unless we think non-human apes count as civilized.